TMA Systems Acquires Maxpanda

Acquisition strengthens TMA’s market leadership with capabilities to service SMB to enterprise customers

TULSA, Oklahoma- TMA Systems, a US-based leader and developer of Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) and Enterprise Asset Management Solutions (EAMS), today announced the acquisition of Maxpanda, a cloud-based CMMS software company serving small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

Founded in 2011 in Winnipeg, Canada, Maxpanda is a great fit for SMBs seeking maintenance management capabilities. The software is easy-to-use, affordable, and enables customers to onboard themselves quickly. Flexible pricing options provide a seamless way for clients to move away from paper and manual systems and into a digital CMMS.

“The acquisition of Maxpanda marks a significant milestone for TMA Systems as we continue to expand our reach,” said Mark Simner, CEO of TMA Systems. “With an aging workforce, maintenance management skills gaps, and supply-chain disruptions, businesses both small and large need to embrace predictive maintenance strategies. Leaning on advanced CMMS/EAM solutions like those offered by TMA Systems will enable our clients to remain competitive in the marketplace.”

TMA Systems and Maxpanda are both dedicated to innovation and delivering unparalleled customer support. With this acquisition, the two companies offer asset maintenance management solutions for companies of all sizes. TMA’s commitment to customer satisfaction, product innovation, and exceptional service will ensure that clients receive the best possible solutions for their maintenance management needs.

Maxpanda represents TMA’s third acquisition since its 2021 investment from Silversmith Capital Partners. TMA continues to enhance its solutions and services with capabilities to service clients of all sizes and across industries, including education, healthcare, corporate, government, life sciences, food and beverage, transportation, manufacturing, retail, hospitality, and property management organizations.

About TMA Systems

For more than 30 years, TMA Systems has been recognized as a world-class provider of advanced Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) and Enterprise Asset Management Solutions (EAMS). Worldwide, more than 1,650 TMA clients maintain in excess of 55,000 facilities, representing 4.5 billion square feet of space. TMA’s products, along with world-class services, are key reasons WebTMA is the preferred solution for facility professionals throughout the world. TMA’s advanced solutions meet or exceed the needs of education, healthcare, corporate, government, life sciences, food and beverage, transportation, manufacturing, and retail organizations. For more information on TMA Systems, visit www.tmasystems.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

About Maxpanda

Maxpanda, established in 2011, is a prominent provider of facility maintenance management software that streamlines operations and enhances efficiency. With its intuitive design and robust maintenance management capabilities, Maxpanda is designed to meet the needs of businesses across a range of industries including healthcare, education, hospitality, public works, and manufacturing. Additionally, the software is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), providing them with a cost-effective and user-friendly solution for their maintenance management needs. For more information on Maxpanda visit www.Maxpanda.com or connect on LinkedIn.

About Silversmith Capital Partners

Founded in 2015, Silversmith Capital Partners is a Boston-based growth equity firm with $3.3 billion of capital under management. Silversmith’s mission is to partner with and support the best entrepreneurs in growing, profitable technology and healthcare companies. Representative investments include ActiveCampaign, Appfire, Apryse, DistroKid, impact.com, Iodine Software, LifeStance Health, and Webflow. For more information, including a full list of portfolio investments, visit www.silversmith.com or follow the firm on LinkedIn.

Contacts

Scott Nelson
VP of Marketing
TMA Systems
marketing@tmasystems.com

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Maxpanda is touch-less, paper-less and pandemic proof

Is your maintenance team still working with paper request forms? Do they need to travel to a central office to get their daily assignments? It may be time for you to make the switch to Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) software. It may be time for Maxpanda.

“Maxpanda CMMS maintenance management software is an affordable way to move your team away from paper forms and lists, and into touch-less, paper-less work order management system they can access from the convenience of their smartphone, tablet or computer,” said Steve Kyriakidis, Product and Support Manager, Maxpanda. 

Preventative maintenance needs have not stopped throughout the coronavirus pandemic, no matter which wave your city finds itself in. Making the switch from paper to a CMMS maintenance management software is one way you can help keep your team working safely, even when they can’t be working together. 

“Not only does CMMS maintenance management software make it easier to keep your team working, it means you can help reduce contact between team members and high-touch surfaces. The software lets you keep in constant communication with your team, contractors and vendors across multiple sites,” said Steve.

Other benefits of Maxpanda CMMS include:

  • No extra hardware to purchase – Maxpanda is web-based, which means it is ready to go when you are, and accessible anytime, anywhere.
  • Up-to-date access – What you see is what you get, and users always have the latest version of our program. There is never the need to install lengthy updates, new software or security patches. Our weekly code base updates handles it all for you. 
  • No unexpected fees – We will never surprise you with unexpected software support fees.
  • Security – Rest assured that your content is always protected, backed-up and supported thanks to our robust and comprehensive security infrastructure backed by AWS.
  • Cloud storage – Your data will be permanently stored on the Amazon Cloud where it will always be available when you need it.
  • 24/7 customer care – We are always available to help you with any issues…because problems do not always originate during office hours!

Your team may be working in high-traffic environments, so let Maxpanda help you keep them connected on the job while minimizing touch points throughout the entire process. 

Ready to try it? Sign up today for a free, seven-day trial.

The 100% Benefits Of CMMS For Cost-Effective with the best building management software

Benefits Of building management software. Effective property management is a balancing act: you have to keep tenants happy and keep property owners happy, all while lowering the cost of maintenance as much as possible to maximize profits. At times, these can seem like dueling incentives – to keep people happy, you have to spend a lot of money, right?

Not necessarily – and a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) can help. 

Efficiency means savings, and everything a CMMS can do works to make all of your processes more efficient. We’re going to go over the ways a CMMS can streamline and improve your property maintenance – and save you money.

Preventive Maintenance Comes First

Preventive maintenance using the proper building management software of high cost assets can save you a lot of money. We aren’t, of course, advocating for preventive maintenance on all things – you should probably wait until a light bulb fails in a common area, for example, before replacing it. 

That said, preventive maintenance on assets like HVAC units, roofs, plumbing systems, etc., can save you a lot of time and money. The costs for emergency repairs are inevitably higher, tenant and owner satisfaction drop when emergency repairs happen a lot, and repair or replacement almost invariably cost more than preventive maintenance.

Your CMMS / building management software should have preventive maintenance scheduling as one of its core functionalities. From there, work orders will be sent automatically (more on that in the next section). Better yet, you’ll be able to analyze when a particular item is due for scheduled maintenance (part replacements, etc.), and schedule preventive maintenance for the same time, saving on labor costs.

Spare Parts Management Saves Time

Here’s a scenario that may ring true to many of you: you send someone out to fix a light bulb in a common area. They arrive at the building only to find there are no light bulbs – and it’s the end of their shift, on a weekend. Now you might have to pay someone extra to go fix the bulb on the weekend, or you may have to deal with tenant/property owner dissatisfaction.

You’ll never experience a scenario like this again with a CMMS building management software. You’ll be able to track how many spare parts you have at a given location. This allows you to stock up when you’re running low – you can also transfer spare parts from one location to another in your CMMS building management software, so if you can ask someone who is working at two different locations in one day to transfer spare parts from one spot to another.

This functionality goes far beyond light bulbs, of course – you can track everything from screwdrivers to paint. Your entire maintenance team will have access to the CMMS building management software, so when a spare part is used, they’ll be able to remove it from the CMMS, keeping everything up to date.

Work Order Management Keeps Things Moving

The amount of time it can take to call one handyperson, learn they’re still busy on the job you’d given them prior, get back on the phone, call someone else, figure out how far they are along in their job…you get the idea. It’s inefficient.

A CMMS building management software will come with built-in work order management – you shoot off a work order, the person you’ve assigned it to receives a notice, and they can then notify you through the CMMS building management software when the work is done. No more phone tag!

These are just a few of the many ways in which property maintenance CMMS can make property management more time and cost efficient. Our CMMS building management software will also help you by running and saving a variety of reports on what work has been done, and it comes complete with a number of triggers you can implement which, when met, create a work order for preventive maintenance. 

Automating your property maintenance saves you time and money! Get the right building management software today.

Excel vs. CMMS: 7 Reasons You Should Switch To CMMS Software

There are a lot of companies managing their asset maintenance through Excel. For a long time, Excel was the most practical solution for tracking how often items had been maintained, what the maintenance cost was, how many spare parts you had, the locations of assets, etc. Computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) can do all of the things Excel did to replace restaurant maintenance software, and a whole lot more. We’re going to look at seven reasons you should switch to a CMMS:

User-Friendly Software

Excel is a lot of things, but user-friendly isn’t one of them. The learning curve can be steep, and modifying your maintenance management files can be a real pain. Restaurant maintenance software, on the other hand, are designed to be user-friendly, with easy-to-use graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and several features that make tracking data and running reports as easy as pie.

Work Order Management

With Excel, your work order management probably looks something like this: you see that something is due for maintenance, you send a text out to find a technician to work on it, you get a text back, and you keep texting back and forth.

Work order management through CMMS Restaurant maintenance software makes that whole process much easier. When you see something is due for maintenance, you can simply touch the item on the app, and assign a work order to a technician. You’ll then be automatically updated on the progress of the work order until its completion. The app communicates everything for you, and it makes scheduling work orders much easier – you can see all existing work orders in one place, and can also look at work order history.

Keep Everything in One Place

Many companies keep different Excel files for inventory in different locations. With a CMMS, every location is on the same program, so all you have to do is select which location you want to view or edit. No more sending files back and forth between locations – everything that has something to do with maintenance can be found in your CMMS Restaurant maintenance software.

Keep Things Accessible

It’s almost impossible to know who will end up needing access to your maintenance files, or where they’ll be when they do need access. With a CMMS, you can grant varying degrees of access to stakeholders who need to view or edit maintenance files. What’s more, CMMS solutions are cloud-based, so even if you’re halfway across the world, you can send work orders in case of emergencies or other unexpected occurrences.

Preventive Maintenance 

Your CMMS Restaurant maintenance software can automatically schedule and send out work orders for preventive maintenance. Best of all, you can set a wide variety of triggers which, when activated, send out those preventive maintenance orders. Most businesses opt for preventive maintenance every x days, for the sake of simplicity. With a CMMS, it’s easy to instead trigger preventive maintenance for every x time something is used, or for every y miles or kilometers a vehicle is driven, among others.

Improve Data Management

You’ve probably heard about how Big Data can be used to create more accurate predictions. That’s true on a micro scale as well – the more quality data you can collect and compare, the better the insights you can glean from that data. As a consequence of keeping all of your data in the same place, a CMMS can use that data to analyze your maintenance patterns and help you make predictions about when an item should be maintained, and the overall costs of repairing or replacing the item.

Automated Reporting

Your CMMS will come with a number of reports automatically built in, from overdue work orders to your monthly maintenance costs. These reports will also automatically be saved in your CMMS, something that isn’t nearly as easy to do with Excel. 

There are many other great reasons to switch to our Restaurant maintenance software, from how easy it is to save data to how automation reduces the number of human errors you’ll see, making information more reliable and accurate. CMMS Restaurant maintenance software are also incredibly customizable, so whatever industry you’re in, we can help create a solution that’s perfect for you. 

CMMS SOFTWARE

3 Tips For Using A CMMS In The Food & Beverage Industry

Many industries have stringent requirements for asset and equipment maintenance, but it’s possible that none are as strict as the requirements in the food and beverage industry (save, perhaps, those of the pharmaceutical industry). When you’re manufacturing consumables, it’s understandable that clean, well-maintained machinery is an absolute must.

Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) are a method by which you can make your asset maintenance more efficient. Describing all of the functions of a CMMS is outside the scope of what we want to explore here, but in short, they’re a type of restaurant maintenance software that allows you to automate work orders and workflow, track equipment and equipment maintenance (as well as spare parts), and give you insights into when a piece of equipment may need to be maintained, repaired, or replaced.

We’re going to look at three tips to improve your business’s efficiency through the use of a CMMS. One of its core functionalities is to help you with all forms of restaurant maintenance software.

Use Work Orders to Your Advantage

One of the core functionalities of a CMMS is work order management. In brief, you can use work order management to instantly send work to a given technician, and to see what work is scheduled for a particular piece of equipment.

This can be a massive boon, especially if you’re also using your CMMS to schedule preventive maintenance. Imagine this scenario – you’ve got a brew system with preventive maintenance scheduled, and three days later, a pump is scheduled to be replaced on the same system. Instead of wasting work doing preventive maintenance on the pump, you can reschedule the restaurant maintenance software for the same day that the pump is being replaced. 

By actively viewing all of the work scheduled on a piece of equipment, you’ll be able to find a lot of efficiencies you may have been missing before.

Automating Maintenance

As alluded to earlier, you can use CMMS to automate preventive maintenance on your equipment. One of the biggest advantages of CMMS is the use of customizable triggers. These triggers allow you to customize preventive maintenance beyond your typical “once per time period” schedule.

For example, instead of maintaining a piece of equipment on a monthly basis, you can instead opt to maintain it after X amount of use, tracking usage in your CMMS. This is great for pieces of equipment that you use a lot sometimes, but less other times. Triggers are also customizable; you might, for example, connect your CMMS restaurant maintenance software with a spreadsheet that tracks temperature fluctuations in a cooling unit, and triggers preventive maintenance when those temperatures fall out of a normal range for X amount of days in a row.

Automating maintenance can help you ensure you’re always meeting regulatory compliance goals and can help your equipment last longer.

Go Paperless

You should transfer all of your inventory, be it equipment or spare parts, onto your CMMS. A CMMS is accessible from anywhere, and you can create specific locations into which you input all of your equipment. This makes it much easier to track where equipment is, which is especially useful if you have multiple warehouses/production facilities. 

Another advantage is accessibility – you’ll be able to edit the contents of your CMMS on the fly, no matter where you are, and you can give access to other people on your team. That means that even if technicians are away from the site, or you need to edit things while you’re in another country, you can do so easily.

Trial restaurant maintenance software for 7 days on us.

building maintenance cmms

CMMS Software Helping Fight Back Covid

WINNIPEG, Canada – Maxpanda, a leading developer of CMMS Software that is based in Winnipeg, Canada, is pleased to announce that its software is playing an important role in the global fight against the spread of the coronavirus. Their customers, including 1200 Carl’s Junior restaurants in California and Mexico, are utilizing the software to ensure daily cleaning and weekly filter changes. Weekly filter changes can help to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19. 

The CMMS software effectively puts systems in place to help remind and monitor daily cleaning tasks, which in turn, ensures that customers are safe. The company is also celebrating the two million work orders that they have received over the last twelve months. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect across the world on millions of families in addition to causing huge problems to many businesses,” said Steve Kyriakidis.  “Maxpanda is determined to do everything in our power to help in the fight against this terrible pandemic, and with the CMMS software we have produced, it ensures that procedures are not only put in place but adhered to. Perhaps the best example of this is the many gym clients we have. Gyms should be cleaned a minimum of three times a day, and our customers can monitor this on the app remotely, to ensure that tasks are being completed.” 

Maxpanda CMMS Software is an award-winning software for maintenance professionals empowering staff & vendors to work more efficiently. Maxpanda CMMS software is widely used for maintaining a computerized database of information related to the maintenance operation of an individual company or multiple companies. This information is stored in the cloud and assists maintenance departments of all sizes to perform preventive maintenance tasks more efficiently through the included GoMAX mobile assistant app, available for free. Maxpanda is disrupting CMMS software with a platform that’s simpler and more affordable, allowing customers to eliminate errors and delays that exist with pen and paper. For more information about the company and the services they provide, visit their website at https://www.maxpanda.com

atex rating

ATEX Rated Maintenance Management System

What we are trying to solve

You need to ensure that all equipment is managed properly. The planned preventative maintenance schedule, follow-on work orders and the reactive maintenance schedule must be managed, along with any spare parts which are needed to ensure that the systems are as reliable as possible.

The site is subject to regulations, with a number of rated areas. This means that, for example, any equipment that is rated must be flagged as such, and the rating of that equipment recorded.  The basic maintenance process that is will be following is described in the diagram below.

Structure of the organization

There are two divisions: Production and Care & Maintenance. Both of these divisions are different legal entities, and so need to be managed completely separately from a financial perspective. Most of the equipment is associated with the production division, with a much smaller equipment base in the Care & Maintenance division.

The maintenance technicians will be working for a central organisation – a shared services group – and will then be despatched to work on the various equipment as needed. The maintainers will usually (but not exclusively) work in either the production area or in the Care & Maintenance area.

Interface to finance

There will be no interface to any finance system as this is a temporary system until the ERP system is implemented. It will be important to produce financial reporting from the system however, so that the cost of any maintenance tasks can be accounted for, as well as the cost of maintenance for any particular machine. The reporting should be in both PDF and Excel format ( could be XLSX or CSV format )

Hosting

The system should be cloud hosted, in a GDPR compliant datacentre. System uptime should be close to 100%, with availability on a 24×7 basis as the site will be running 24 hours a day.

Work costing

Each technician will have a cost allocated to them – probably a standard cost per hour. This cost should be used to calculate the total cost of labour for any job. The cost of any materials that is consumed from the store or procured via a PO should also be allocated to the work order. Some work will need a subcontractor, which should also be included along with any costs from purchases that don’t have a PO, for example purchase via credit card.

Equipment costing

All work against a piece of equipment should be costed, and automatically rolled up to the overall equipment costs. It will then be possible to easily see the cost of maintenance for any piece of equipment.

Asset structure

A multi-level asset structure is needed whereby the assets are split down to the following:

  • Area
  • Equipment
  • Item

All spare parts are allocated to the asset on the machine. This item will link to a store stock code, which will be a different number. A single stores stock number can map to many asset numbers. Each field in the structure needs to be an alphanumeric field.

Work orders

The heart of the requirement is the Work Order. All work must be controlled by the Work Order, be that a Planned Maintenance task or a reactive maintenance task. No team member will be able to start work without a work order. Costs are all allocated to the work order. The strategic goal for the system will be to ensure that technicians have some kind of electronic device to access their work orders, however in the short term these will be printed out & handed to the technician. The technician will update the work order after the work is complete back at the office.

Planned Maintenance

Each PM job should have a task list, a parts list and also a checklist which documents any specific checks that need to be made – for example a current reading when a motor is running normally. All parts will either need a stores item number, or details of a PO that should be created. The PM will also be categorized, so that it’s easily possible to understand what kind of PM it is – Safety Critical, Critical, Standard etc. These lists should be printed out (or be available via an app on a tablet or phone) so that they can be used at the workplace & the results of the tests be recorded.

The results of any tests should be held individually so that it’s possible to do trend analysis on the figures, rather than being held as a text field which cannot be reported from. These figures should be linked to the machine and allow, in the future, for an automated collection of data.

Scheduling

Each task ( with the exception of reactive, breakdown maintenance tasks ) will be scheduled & will be allocated to one or more technicians. It should be possible to easily see the workload of each technician as well as the overall tasks that are ongoing during any chosen day. Tasks may be “one-off” tasks or repetitive tasks, based on a time rota. Some equipment may have multiple PMs – maybe a simple PM weekly but then a more in-depth PM on a monthly basis. The system should not issue a weekly PM when a monthly PM is being undertaken in this case. It’s sometimes necessary to “borrow” a technician from one division to another if the workload demands. The system must be able to allocate technicians from one division to a work order in the other division.

The scheduling of maintenance tasks needs to be undertaken on a graphical screen, which will show the loading for each technician & will flag up if the technician is approaching 100% loading. Planning should be on an infinite capacity planning basis, so that the scheduler will be able to over/under load any technician as appropriate. There should be a drag & drop capability to move work items from one day to the next & also to easily reassign work orders to other technicians.

Planning

Each scheduled work order needs to be planned, so that the number of people and also the required parts are all allocated to the job. This will allow the system to manage the stock movements, including procurement of parts in an MRP system.

Improvement work

These small projects will have a number of different tasks, which will be managed as work orders. They all need to be held together so that an overall cost can be collated for the improvement work. These costs must be able to be split between labour costs & parts costs. It must be possible to run a report on all improvement projects to identify the costs of the project. These costs should be split down into internal labour, external labour & parts.

Reactive maintenance

Any breakdown that comes in to the departments should be managed through the system. The exact piece of equipment and fault description should be logged. It should also be possible to allocate spare parts to the reactive maintenance job, time that the technician spends and also the cost of any third party that also needs to be brought in, if needed. This will usually be in the form of the cost of a purchase order that’s sent to the third party to perform some work.

Inspections

One of the vitally important areas of work in the business will be inspection PMs. These are work orders that ensure that the equipment is safe to operate. There will be different categories of inspections, with some being rated as “ critical”, and if these are missed then they should be rated as a “near miss”, and investigated appropriately. It should be easy to get a list of the  Critical inspection=s for the week, and understand which have yet to be completed. A report should also be available that details any missed  Critical inspections that have been missed in any defined period of time.

Recording of work done

It must be possible, for all types of work order, to record the exact work that has been completed and any spare parts that have been consumed. Reactive maintenance should, in addition, have fault codes which can be allocated to the job so that later analysis of the various breakdowns is possible.

Stock

There is a large amount of stock associated with the various equipment that will be installed on-site. All of this stock must be managed. Each piece of stock must be linked to one or more pieces of equipment. The stock must be held in a defined location, and the cost of the item as well as a primary & secondary supplier for that item. Lead-time must also be managed.

Any stock withdrawal should be allocated to a piece of equipment. The system should manage the stock levels, so that if any item reaches a defined level, then the system will alert the stock controller that an order needs to be placed for that item. The system must be able to create a report of all items, grouped by supplier, so that the stores controller is able to easily manage the reordering process. This stock management facility also needs to look ahead into the future work orders that are being scheduled to ensure that the required spare parts will be available for the technicians to carry out the work when it’s due. It should be possible to hold phantom stock items, which have a zero stock holding. When a demand is made on these items, the system will then flag up that the item needs to be purchased.

Stock purchased will generally be procured via a purchase order. The stock system should issue a PO for any purchase, and if a purchase is needed for a non-stock item, then a PO will normally be issued for that part too. There may be occasions where a PO will not be issued – the cost of the part in this case also needs to be captured. Any stock item should be replaced with a part that’s an exact replacement. If an equivalent part is to be used, then a formal change management process must be undertaken. No part can be changed for an equivalent without the change management process being completed and documented. This documentation should be attached to the stock part in the store.

All rated stock should be flagged as such, in a way that is easy for the viewer to see that this part needs to be carefully managed.

Consignment stock

There are some items – such as nuts & bolts – which are held on consignment stock. These items are generally of low value, and will not be recorded by the system against any work order.

Stock numbering

Stock will be numbered in an 8 digit alphanumerical sequence.

Stock locations

Each part will be held in its own stores location. There could be multiple warehouses:

  • Main store
  • PDU store

The parts will have their own locations in the warehouse. This will be a structured location scheme in the main store:

  • Aisle number
  • Rack number
  • Shelf number
  • Bin number

CMMS: What Is Its Role Within The Company?

In today’s technology-driven world, business moves at a lightning fast pace. Paperwork simply cannot keep up with the speed a company needs to operate efficiently. That’s why CMMS (computerized maintenance management system software) was developed. It’s designed to streamline the process of preserving assets and organizing repairs. But what is a CMMS exactly, and how does it benefit your business?

Ever heard the saying that preventative care is the best care? This style of maintenance helps your business avoid problems before they occur – this is opposed to reactive maintenance, which involves putting out fires after problems have already happened. CMMS software is designed to foresee these problems ahead of time so your company will never lose efficiency or have interrupted service. It’s a way for companies to manage inventory and maintenance on a platform that’s accessible for technicians, managers, and employees. This digital platform can assist your business operations in numerous ways:

It helps manage inventory. Trying to keep up with sales using pen and paper is a nearly impossible task. Even with a spreadsheet, it’s grueling to manage thousands of parts. With CMMS, your entire staff can see what’s in stock and make changes in real-time. It gives you the ability to automate purchases so that you’re never short on essential supplies. Say goodbye to overspending on inventory – CMMS lets you see exactly how much you’re paying, so you can stay within your budget. You’ll also be able to view which machines need spare parts. Leave the guesswork out of inventory management by using CMMS – you’ll know exactly what your business needs, and what it costs.  

Regulate work orders. When essential equipment breaks down, you need it fixed quickly to keep your company functioning. CMMS gives you the ability to record the issues and probable causes behind them, and quickly assign a technician to solve the problem. Managers can access these orders from a desktop or using a mobile app. When a new work order is issued, a technician is notified immediately. 

Keep track of scheduled tasks. When no jobs are missed, your workforce will operate like a well-oiled machine. CMMS software can help everyone keep track of upcoming repairs – this includes the ability to send reminders to those with imminent tasks. The online calendar with color-coded lists makes comprehending work orders easy. Managers will be notified when duties have been completed. 

Make information for audits readily available. A history of every action performed on your assets will be accessible when they’re filed using CMMS. Verifying information will be seamless in the event of an insurance or accident claim. You’ll be able to search and find all tasks performed on an asset in seconds. Using our software, you can achieve ISO certification which shows customers that your brand is consistent and follows industry standards. 

View repair history. With older machines, it’s helpful for technicians to know the source of past problems. Logging repair history into CMMS makes it easier to diagnose the causes of future issues. You’ll also be able to monitor when upcoming maintenance is due. It makes it easy to view all the previous problems with the machine, and how they were fixed. Eliminate the downtime that occurs when an asset malfunctions by using CMMS software to log repair history. 

What kinds of companies can utilize CMMS? When it comes to healthcare, you need a program that can meet the trying demands of this industry. The breakdown of medical equipment can be life-threatening for patients that rely on it. CMMS will track the performance of this vital equipment to prevent outages – and if a repair is needed, a technician will be notified immediately. Property managers will appreciate all the benefits that CMMS has to offer –  it’s nearly impossible to juggle all the requests in multiple buildings without it. Whether it’s managing repairs or scheduling unit cleanings, there are an array of operations that CMMS can help you manage.

Or how about running a restaurant? Preserving kitchen appliances is essential for your operation to keep producing delicious plates. You also need to stay on top of a rapidly depleting food inventory. But there’s more to it than that – you also have to consider regular cleanings of the restrooms and dining areas. To keep customers happy, you’ll also want to have your HVAC systems serviced semi-annually. How do you keep track of all these tasks? CMMS is intended to decrease any headaches that come along with maintenance scheduling. We offer customizable pricing plans to give your company a platform that suits your needs. For entrepreneurs in all industries, this software will bring efficiency and expediency to your company’s asset management. 

Maxpanda offers feature-rich CMMS software that’s user-friendly, fast, and affordable. Does your business need building management software? Our award-winning digital platform is designed to be straightforward, which will quickly improve the productivity of your business operations. It makes scheduled repairs streamlined and accessible to all users involved. We offer 24/7 support so that you’re always covered when you need assistance.

asset tracking software

Why Is Building Management Software Vital? Read This!

Did you know that a real estate related business is a lucrative type of business? According to Statistica, there can be a rental growth level of 2.1% from the year 2019 until 2023. This rental business growth speculation is being bombarded last March by growth decrease related issues due to Covid pandemic. However, it can’t be denied as a fact that people really need shelter. Families need houses, apartments, condos and other residential units. That is why despite the economic impact of Covid to real estate businesses, it is still evident that this type of business endeavor is going to flourish in the coming years.

Because of this consideration, every owner of a house or condominium for rent/lease needs a facility management software tool. This is the focus of this blog article – to provide you some facts as to why you badly need this software. Of course, the main point here is you have to make sure that your tenants are happy with their rented residential building or room. But then, because of the possible issues to arise, it is a must for you to have a property management maintenance software. It is a platform wherein all services to be offered to the clients are optimized and streamlined.

Revealing the essence of building management software

It’s a common thing to happen that tenants and renters may be having problems relevant to the space or unit they’re renting. Damaged parts or sections of the house, like kitchen, living room, pool area, and the like should be renovated, repaired as soon as possible. A fast resolution process will enable your business to have a more efficient performance. Of course, the satisfaction level of the tenants should be high. If not, your business will be potentially risked. You need to avoid it. That is why it is advised that you find a provider of a building management software platform, like Maxpanda.

A positive sense of user experience is the main objective of those companies providing building management software online. Yes, it’s the ultimate goal – to make people happy. All parties must be satisfied. Remember that when you’re able to satisfy your tenants, you can also enjoy undeniable satisfaction due to the fact that your business will be able to experience a great performance in terms of increased income and profit. Real estate businesses are lucrative, to reiterate. But it is a must for you to have a systematic approach to address and fix all possible issues.

Benefits of Maxpanda’s computerized maintenance management

It is non-arguable to consider the real and clear benefits of property maintenance and repair software. Most real estate business individuals have found this tool as more efficient in terms of providing great services compared to manual approaches. It can be helpful to hire a property manager who will look into the regular issues that might arise and to craft solutions for the same issues. However, a manual effectuation, like just having a spreadsheet to maneuver things needed to be executed, has a lesser positive impact. The need to address the problems abruptly can hardly be realized. Consequently, it is important to have a building management software for this purpose.

Maxpanda sets a 24-7 customer support service whereby all issues can be channeled and sorted out for quick resolution within 24 hours. Non-stop as they say. The provision of effective remedies can happen any time of the day or night. This is how quick they’ll be able to remedy problems like the need to repair and renovate damaged kitchen or HVAC-related problems.

In a nutshell

Running a residential or commercial building for a rental business is great. Why? There is real money here. However, it can’t be easy to manage this type of business. There are things that need to be considered and understood well. Make sure that you have a building management software which functions as an effective aid in terms of providing a more transparent and more efficient approach to resolve any business concerns. If you want a more efficient management operation, you badly need this tool.

cmms business people

Property Management Maintenance Software: Reasons Why You Need It

Implementing a smooth and comprehensive property maintenance strategy is an important aspect as far as doing business is concerned. It has led to the birth of a platform that you should have to try to use for your maintenance and repair program to become better. A more efficient approach is vital when it comes to scheduling regular maintenance, receiving requests, and sorting out what needs to be done to address the problems. This is why you need property management maintenance software.

Keeping your property tenants happy and satisfied serves as the ultimate way for your business to prosper dramatically. Hence, you have to get a provider of property maintenance software. This is to provide real benefits to the clienteles who are depending on the way you serve them. There are a lot of property management maintenance software choices. One of the great options is created and provided by Maxpanda. This company aims to give satisfactory services to its clients. Their main purpose is to help businesses optimize their operations.

Why do you need property management maintenance software?

There are clear reasons why you need it. Below are some of the things you have to learn as to why this software is important for you.

It’s a powerful tool to help you have a more optimized maintenance operation.

Optimizing the process of fixing issues in relation to your business is quite necessary. That is why you have to get a trusted software tool serving this purpose. But make sure that the features provided by the provider are great enough to help you. Otherwise, the problems you really want to solve can remain as problems.

There are issues like the need to repair and/or renovate the apartment for rent. Attending to this need should be done right away. An immediate response should be effectuated to make the tenants happy. When they experience happiness, they would be able to appreciate your management system. And it can have a domino positive effect on the business you’re handling and managing. Hence, progress is easily achievable.

Tenants are always kept updated regarding maintenance and repair services.

It’s necessary to keep your tenants always on the loop. This is an essential aspect when doing a property-related business. But of course, it’s not always easy to keep them always updated. If you do it manually, the result would be unfavorable. Meaning, it’s not going to be very easy for you. Hence, you should find a way wherein the process would be more efficient, effective, and helpful. More particularly if your tenants have a long-term contract with you, assisting and settling their problems must be done as quickly as possible. This way, there can be an assurance that their satisfaction level would reach a definite dramatic height. It would be then more favorable to your business success.

The number of complaints regarding tenant service tend to reduce.

With property management maintenance software, you will be able to reduce the number of complaints associated with repairs and maintenance systems. The usual problems to arise are related to fixtures, lights, HVAC, pool sanitation and other related services, and so on. All of these must be fixed as immediately as possible. It is probable to solve all these problems when you have an optimized way. A software can serve as the most effective solution. Thereby, it is best advised to have a property maintenance software for your business to hit the desired success level.

Conclusion

Real estate rental businesses are dramatically increasing despite the presence of Covid these days. It is so because of the fact that people still need a house or an apartment to live. It is necessary to provide shelter to every family. Hence, the use of management and repair software is important for every owner of a house, or apartment, or condo for rent. The purpose of which is to expedite the action whenever necessary. Every time there is a problem, you have to make sure that you can settle it immediately. The rate of providing a resolution process must be high. Otherwise, your business growth will be compromised.

Maxpanda is the provider to trust

Want To Organize A Maintenance Program? Try Facility Management Software Now!

Saving time and money for things associated with business activities is important. That is why you need to make sure that you run a system that truly works. This is the essence of this blog post. You will be taught about the importance of facility management software in organizing things relevant to maintenance and repair of any property-related businesses. If you are running such a business, then this page is right for you.

Giving ease and comfort to your business clients is a major task that you should not take for granted. Hence, you have to ensure setting a working and effective program. There has to be a comprehensive platform you need to utilize and be reminded that there are online providers of useful tools. One of them is Maxpanda. This company is offering a well-created facility management software.

Why is facility management software important?

With this software, all tasks related to facility maintenance and repair can be organized properly. Such proper organization needs to be done in order to make sure that the business endeavor will become fruitful. The functions of building management software include the following:

  • Building maintenance and repair
  • Contractor compliance
  • Preventive measures implementation
  • Space and other assets management
  • Invoice management
  • On-time tasks accomplishment reporting
  • Location work order management

So, with this property maintenance software, your business will be run smoothly. Streamlining the process is doable with the application of this tool. That is why most business people are relying on it as it provides great results for them.

Improving the level of customer satisfaction is one of the most basic essential elements when doing any form of business. Regardless of the nature of your business endeavor, you need to satisfy your clients or customers. Hence, you have to understand that this facility management software is one of the best tools you can use to make sure that the satisfaction level among your customers is maintained. It’s really a great way to make them happy and satisfied.

In what way can those customers be satisfied? Of course, fixing any problem that may arise is one of the best solutions you can do. For instance, attending to the repair needs of apartment renters is one of the most important things a landlord should do. Otherwise, more complex problems will come out when those simple problems are not immediately remedied. This is the reason why you badly need a facilities management system. It has to work to improve the level of customer satisfaction.

Other factors to consider why you need the software

Responding proactively to all types of issues is necessary, regardless of the range and domain of such issues. A proactive response is usually done when you know how to expect usual and common problems. Even the unusual ones, if possible, should be analyzed in advance. Failure to do this can somehow lead to biz shortcomings. So, it is necessary to make sure that you can use a working and applicable tool for remedial purposes.

This is where this facility management software has come into play. It needs to be tried if you want to make your business successful. To reiterate, it is for the purpose of saving time and money. It is to help you achieve your biz goals and objectives. You have to rely on it as it’s tested and proven as effective in making sure that addressing any type of problem will immediately be done. You need this software now.

Maxpanda is the provider to trust

Of course, you need to choose a software provider. Good news because Maxpanda has existed already to provide business clients the full potential of reaching biz goals. This company offers realistic solutions which are faster, better and more affordable. There is a systematized and robust program you can apply through their help. They are professional in dealing with customers. Their help can be substantial in terms of providing what is best for your property related business operation. So, let them help you today. It’s your chance to reach the zenith of your dream to have a sustainable and profitable business.

Using preventive maintenance software

Benefits Of Preventive Maintenance Software Revealed

For your property business to run smoothly and profitably, you have to secure and apply preventive measures. Why is it so? Well, property-related issues are normal to happen. They may affect your business operation anytime. Hence, you have to make sure that you have such a working and actionable plan whenever confronted by unwanted problems. This to control and prevent untoward circumstances like downtime and asset failure. In this case, you badly need preventive maintenance software, a tool that is run by a computer program set to provide immediate remedial action to any sort of maintenance-related concerns.

In relation to having property management maintenance, there are benefits you can enjoy. This is the focus of this blog post, to provide you with essential facts about this software. Companies like Maxpanda exist as a solution provider. Their solution is the immediate provision of outright remedy to any unfavorable circumstances that might jeopardize the way you run your business.

Is it really necessary to have preventive maintenance software? The answer to this question is below.

Let’s discuss now the benefits of preventive maintenance software

There are 4 major benefits when using maintenance software for property damage prevention.

1.     Major repairs are unavoidable but there’s a solution.

When running a real estate business, you need to prevent major repairs. Why? It may entail shelling out of a big amount of money without doing it. It means massive cost. That is why having regular maintenance is advised. It can make your business more favorable in terms of having sustaining profit. Preventing predictable issues is one of the most efficient techniques to see to it that your business is going to run more efficiently. When you have a system like preventive maintenance software, you will be able to know the problems as early as possible. In this sense, preventive measures can be effectuated as fast as needed.

2.     Maintenance costs need to be reduced so you have to be very cautious.

The satisfaction of your biz clients depends mainly on how you handle the issues that might affect them. You need facility management software because it can help you in properly handling the problems that may arise. In general sense, the cost for maintenance can be reduced because you’re always on time in effectuating preventive measures. In other words, preventing problems is better than curing them. You really have to prevent issues from further developing if you want profit inflow to sustain. Otherwise, major drawbacks can tend to happen and affect you.

3.     Your business assets can improve dramatically with preventive measures.

The longevity of your assets’ existence is vital. It’s really important as far as having profit sustainability is concerned. Thus, it is crucial to have preventive measures which are tested and proven. Having preventive maintenance software is one of the most trusted solutions today. The usability of your assets, for instance the parts of the house or building for rent, can be prolonged dramatically. Its longer existence can trigger a more dramatic increase in earning and profit. Why? You can have less expenses for maintenance because you’re always on time when settling problems. Your investment can therefore reap more profit to accrue to your pocket.

4.     Enhanced safety measures are significantly more effective with software.

Because of the computerized program of the software tool, you will be able to have more effective safety measures. It can then lead to a more fruitful business endeavor. Any catastrophic financial failure can be addressed and prevented right away. In a sense, the earlier the solution is, the better with respect to facing business-related problems. Any possible damage to facilities has to be addressed immediately. This is how helpful to have safety measures which are anchored on the use of preventive maintenance software.

Maxpanda: The Solution Provider To Try

Of course, to end this article helpfully, it is important to have a recommendation. When it comes to a solution provider, you can try Maxpanda’s building management software solution. It’s one of the best in the industry. Tested through the years of solid experience, this company is able to provide actionable and workable solutions for your property business. It’s better to prevent problems as early as possible. That is why it is a must to try an affordable yet highly effective solution available today.

Did you know the importance of property maintenance software? Read this blog as it will teach you about it.

Understand Property Maintenance Software Is Vital Before You Have It

Running a real estate related business can be tough. It has a lot of interrelated factors that need to be understood and executed properly. This is one of the reasons why you’re advised to get a property manager. However, the tasks can be more complex than what you’re gonna think of. In this case, you need a more efficient solution to remedy property related issues. You have to know the essence and significance of property maintenance software. It is one of the best solutions you can ever have for your real estate related business to become more profitable.

The satisfaction level of property tenants should dramatically be high. This is to assure you that your business will run smoothly, profitably. But having problems is part of the entire process. It’s impossible to have a business without issues and concerns you need to resolve. Hence, having property maintenance software is one of the most basic approaches you need to apply. Through this tool, you will be able to organize things the right way. The tasks can be implemented properly.

There are certain problems you need to address effectively. Some of them are:

  • Home painting
  • Graffiti cleaning
  • Plumbing-related problems
  • Lawn maintenance
  • Kitchen area repair

And a lot more.

Why do you really need property maintenance software?

A computerized maintenance management system is technically a process wherein you can have a smoother transaction now and then. It’s a systemic approach wherein you will be able to fix the concerns of your real property business efficiently, effectively. According to Maxpanda, real estate owners need to streamline the process. Hence, it is of utmost significance that you can use a preventive maintenance software tool. In this way, the approach will be undertaken immediately, thereby producing more favorable results for your business.

House maintenance in a nutshell is not an easy task. There are intertwining aspects that you need to imbibe. Failure to do this can lead to an overall business failure. The house renters can’t be happy at all. And as this happens, it may have an adverse impact against your operation in relation to your property business.

Features of property management maintenance software

You have to first understand the entirety of this software. The features of this tool are as follows:

  • Multiple sites location capacity
  • Smooth communication channels
  • Updated web-based access
  • Cloud storage capacity
  • Tight security measures
  • QR-run scanning
  • Other tools integration
  • 24/7 customer support team

When finding a provider of property maintenance software, you need to ensure that these features are present. The set features serve as your main basis. When a provider doesn’t have those then it might be great if you look for another software source. On the Internet you can find legitimate providers. All you need to do is to find a way on how you’ll be able to find one that best suits your needs and demands.

Clients want an abrupt solution when problems arise. It’s hard to provide a prompt solution to a particular problem when the system is manual. That is why it is recommended to have a computerized process, wherein everything is run using a computer or a smartphone device. The complexity of the actionable plans can easily be executed through the help of a more systemic computer-run solution provided by a legitimate and genuine provider.

Your real property business needs can rightly be addressed through the implementation of computer-generated schemes and processes. Any maintenance tasks are managed without hassles and risks. Regarding a transparency aspect, the reporting system is streamlined as well. It can be downloaded anytime using the computerized program. The metrics performance can therefore be understood without any trouble whatsoever. This is how productive and effective when relying upon a trusted and reliable building management software.

Is it expensive with Maxpanda?

The cost to set up the software starts from $0. And as a user, you can enjoy free upgrading without the need to shell out money for it. The upgrading and support scheme is unlimited for all users. This is how friendly and innovative this company is in providing a more effective and more credible maintenance software tool for business people running any type of property related ventures.

Simple Tips For New CMMS Managers

There might come a time within your journey up the career ladder when you want to become manager or a team leader and be responsible for more than just your own work. Becoming a manager is an incredibly important thing to get right, and being a good manager is something which can be a challenge for anyone starting out in the field today. Today we are going to take a look at some simple tips and tricks you should follow to allow you to be the best manager you can be.

Use software

As a new manager, the hardest thing you might deal with is making sure that everyone is on track with their projects and that you can stay in the loop with everything this year. You can use a building management software to make things a lot easier for yourself and this will allow you to keep an eye on your employees and see where they are at and what kind of things you should chat to them about each and every day.

Be honest

The difference between a mediocre and a great manager is the ability to communicate and be honest with your workers. Honesty is always the best policy and when it comes to showing your employees that you are a great manager, being transparent is incredibly important. You need to be sure that if you have an issue or a problem that you share this with your team and allow them to help you solve it. Working things out together is better than alone and this will make such an impact on your ability to work together in the office.

Show off talents

Every single person who works under your command will have a unique set of skills which they can show off to you, and they will have the ability to work in unique and different ways. It is important that you always talk to each person as an individual and be sure that you give them tasks and jobs which allow them to show off their talents. If you can treat everyone as an individual you should be able to have the most successful team possible working for you.

Learn to be assertive 
When it comes to becoming a manager for the first time, perhaps the weirdest shift in behavior will be going from taking orders to giving them. If you aren’t a naturally assertive person this can be super hard for you to get used to and it will take a bit of time for you to settle into that flow of things for good. It is important as a leader to be assertive because you need to gain some respect from your workers and you also need to make sure that they will listen to you when you speak. Be confident in your conviction and this will make a big difference to how people see you and how they react to you when you speak to them every day.

Three Important Ways To Keep Your Business Protected

Like all business owners, you are probably looking to make sure that your business is protected at all times. The only way this can be done is if you actually take steps to put necessary precautions in place. Too often business owners will overlook this aspect of their business or they prefer to spend money elsewhere not seeing the protection as a necessity. However, all it takes is for one thing to go wrong and it can cost you your entire business.

In this article, we’re going to look at some things you can do to ensure your business stays protected. Keep reading if you are interested in finding out more.

It’s the law

The first thing you need to do is to make sure you are taking all of the necessary precautions to prevent people from getting injured on your premises. You can do this in a number of ways. One way would be to make sure you adhere to all of the health and safety precautions required by legislation. These laws are there to help businesses and clients remain safe from any possible harm. Ensure that you have been through all of the health and safety regulations that could apply to your business but also be sure to enforce them.

You should also be taking other precaution such as getting your employees to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA’s).  If any employee has access to any confidential information, you need to know you can take action if they divulge company secrets. This is really important if there are certain things your competitors or other people in the industry cannot know about. Or, make sure you invest in preventative maintenance software so that you don’t have to spend numerous hours cleaning up when things start to take a turn.

Get Insured

Do you have business insurance? If the answer to this question is no, you need to really reconsider. There are a variety of types of coverage you could need from workers compensation to general liability and more. Protecting your business should be your top priority, and you can’t do that if don’t have the proper insurance. If you are worried about paying premiums that are not necessary, you shouldn’t. There are specialists who can give you the correct advice to so this does not happen.

Some customers may require you to have insurance in order to do business with them. As an organizational trainer, I had to show proof of insurance before signing a contract to present workshops. Good thing I had it or I would have lost the contract.

Have A Lawyer

Finally, if you have a lawyer on retainer, you can be sure you have someone there to give you the right advice you need if things do go wrong. Some businesses will argue this is a cost they cannot afford, but this should not be the way of thinking that most companies take because just like not following safety regulations and not having insurance, it could cost you your business in the end. It’s always better to have someone there for when you fall to pick you up than to fall and have to navigate your way around the darkness alone.

Spend time assessing your business to make sure you have the protection you need. The time spent will be well worth it. Here’s to YOUR success!

Become Known For Great CMMS Staff Treatment

It’s the case that leaders and employees alike need confidence to conduct their roles. If they have to question themselves too thoroughly each and everyday nothing would get done, and of course, this is why we hire qualified individuals and hope to become qualified ourselves. But there are levels of confidence. Pride could be included into that essential list.

Without pride, it’s quite easy to feel dejected and unhappy in the longer term, especially as a firm hoping to move on from failures and attempt to find successes. Pride can help a firm retain its dignity despite perhaps suffering a bad product launch, or angering a percentage of their customers through a bad decision. Of course, simply suggesting that your firm will never encounter these issues is putting your head in the sand, and isn’t helpful in the least. An issue is likely to befall you at some point.

This means that when it does strike, your business pride will take a hit. But should it be flexible enough to bounce back and motivate your employees to renewed action, or setting up your business in a manner that supports its own operation, you’ll find some positive progress.

Let us consider what that could look like:

Take Care Of It

A business that takes care of itself is one that has pride, front and centre. For example, a business protecting its assets is often seen as one with good sense, but is this the end of the story? Might it be worth implementing measures to ensure that equipment breakdown and staff failure is handled carefully? You’ll be able to implement that wisely with a service such as Maxpanda, as this can help you ensure that your equipment is taken care of, broken down items are kept well serviced, but most importantly that your staff are able to handle these issues well, and organize effectively. This mindset of ‘we will take care of our own value’ is essential to building a firm with self-confidence and the interest to succeed in the end.

Branding Might

Branding might just be something you quickly throw together in your startup days to ensure you have a company name and a logo to promote. But over time, it can often be that you wish for this to be a true representation of that you hope to do. Perhaps your business is changing direction, and the old business logo and name doesn’t quite make sense. You see these rebrands take place all the time, and this can often inject a rejuvenation of pride and a willingness to start afresh, even stronger this time. If your brand feels stagnant, consider this as an option!

Become Known For Staff Treatment

A great product or service success is of course the goal with your business, but it’s also important to become known for staff treatment. For example, it might be that you enjoy a great staff training program, or you’re known to support your staff in aftercare when they leave. Perhaps you have a great maternity package for pregnant employees. Become known for designed programs like this. It can help your staff feel proud to work there.

With these tips, you’re sure to help your business pride.

Avoiding The Waste Of Unnecessary Business Spending

All businesses must spend money to make money. We call this healthy harmony of financial spending and revenue ‘cash flow,’ and this allows companies to develop themselves even when operating at a loss for the time being. This can also be quite common for smaller businesses just trying to get their footing. But no matter the size of your business, big or small, centralized or decentralized, raised or flat in terms of hierarchy, and no matter what assets you’re sitting on or how well known you are, avoiding unnecessary business spending is always key.

Overblown spending can affect your bottom line deeply. It affects your cash flow to the point where expenditure is not longer replenished by the revenue you gain. It can lead to you defaulting on other bills that need to be paid, or can often lead you to an ineffective solution. Often, when budget is a factor, you look for the most efficient means forward. When somehow justifying unnecessary spending, you might actually be harming your productivity.

But how do you prevent this from happening? Let us explore that:

Repair Your Equipment

It can often be that business leaders wish to run their operation from only the most pressing and new equipment needs, especially when it comes to an IT network or when securing the manufacturing line. But in reality, it can often be the case that repairing existing goods can help them remain perfectly functional for a longer time, helping you gain the most value out of them. But of course, maintenance isn’t something you just click your fingers and expect to happen immediately. This also takes effort and time to perfect. Using an CMMS service such as Maxpanda.com can help you implement ticketing solutions to ensure internal and external maintenance priorities are kept in order, helping your staff apply their prioritized skillset to the right task at the right time. This leads your firm to reduce the wasting of precious assets, and instills company pride.

Recuperation

Sometimes, a business will spend money trying to fix a mistake it didn’t need to make in the first place. This can be a true pain, and quite upsetting for those who managed the initial project. Let’s say your marketing effort was a blunder. This is because you decided to arrange this campaign yourself, despite having no marketing hires and little marketing experience. Because you’re not quite up to date with current trends, it might have fallen flat on its face. Only then do you need to hire professionals to once again restore your PR and then acquire the services of a good marketing firm. Consult with the professionals first and foremost, and realize, expert knowledge is priceless.

Staff Turnover

If staff aren’t happy, they will leave, taking the training and development you have invested into them, both in time and budget. You’ll also need to replace them using the same investment. This means that investing a little more in the staff experience, giving them a competitive package and treating them well can help you avoid losing money on your labor engagements over time.

With these tips, you’re sure to avoid the waste of unnecessary business spending.

Planning For The Ideal ‘Zero Mistake’ Automation

There are businesses that can cover their mistakes with added funding, or perhaps wish to experiment and see what they can come up with to innovate. But there are other forms of business that simply cannot tolerate a single mistake, and to do so could mean a complete downfall in their public perception. For example, consider a private clinic. Medical malpractice happening there, even just one case of it, is likely to cause a drop in patient sign-ups and a nasty lawsuit that could cost plenty.

But of course, not all mistakes are as big and messy as these. Simple organizational mistakes, safety hazards or misplaced bookkeeping can truly harm that which you hope to achieve in the long term, and even potentially cause you to worry about your future as a firm.

For that reason, planning for the zero mistake ideal is essential if you ever hope to run as intended. Even if you’re in a firm that can tolerate a mistake here and there, utilizing this ethos can help you better your brand and as an extension, yourself.

Plan Accordingly

It’s essential to make certain you and your team are on the same page, that materials are tracked and inventory is secured. Booked clients must also be taken care of with expert timing and punctuality, and their feedback must be cataloged. In certain advanced practices, hygiene, operational preparedness and a range of other essentially complex and integral duties should be absolutely transparent in how, where, why, when they are happening, and who will be present. Often, finding the best software CRM can help you in this task, particularly brilliant hospital maintenance software designed to track the specialized needs of a clinic like this.

Hygiene & Organization

The old saying suggests that cleanliness is close to Godliness, and it’s hard to deny that emotive use of language. Hygiene can ensure that your business is cared for well, that each day the workplace is refreshed for tomorrow, and that everyone commits their fair share. Unhygienic environments can affect staff and clients or customers, render functional equipment useless and also cause a strong lack in employee motivation. Ensuring that common staff hygiene practices are enforced, a cleaning rota is applied, and specialized cleaning services are hired will help you get some of the way there.

Accountability

Understand that accountability can often prevent untoward action from occurring in the first instance, but also that you are able to get to the heart of a problem when it does occur, helping you learn for next time. Remember, wanton discipline can often lead to staff failing to report issues, so you’re going to have to strike a strong balance between ensuring staff wish to come forward to help educate you of the issue, and being able to discipline willful departure from your policies or simple incompetence from showing.

With these tips, you’ll edge ever-close to the ‘zero mistake’ ideal. To us, that’s a great result.

3 Mistakes That Could Kill Your Medical Practice

If you’re looking for a stable and profitable business to put your money behind, a medical practice is a good option. Everybody needs healthcare so if you set up a good medical practice, you can make a good living while helping out the local community at the same time. But a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that it’s going to be easy and if you set it up, you’re guaranteed to get plenty of patients, but that’s not the case at all. It’s actually very difficult to set up a good medical practice and there are plenty of things that you can get wrong. If you’re thinking about setting up your own medical practice, it’s important that you avoid these common mistakes.

Forgetting The Financial Aspect

A good medical practice is, first and foremost, about excellent patient care. If you can’t offer a good level of care to your patients, you’re going to really struggle to grow the practice and make it a success. However, a lot of people make the mistake of only focusing on patient care and forgetting that this is still a business and needs to be treated as such. It’s so important that you remember the financial aspect and take the same approach that you would to any other business. For example, you might decide that you’re going to invest in a lot of expensive equipment for your practice because it improves patient care. That’s great, as long as you can actually afford it and you’re not going to end up in serious financial trouble because your spending is out of control right at the beginning. You need to have proper financial projections from the very beginning and make sure that you’re managing cash flow effectively. You can increase spending and invest in expensive equipment once you’re well established.

Neglecting Maintenance

Maintenance is so important in any business but it’s especially important in the healthcare industry. You need to make sure that your equipment is working correctly at all times and the building is suitable for patient care, so it’s vital that you stay on top of maintenance. There are a lot of maintenance tasks to keep track of so it’s a good idea to invest in some maintenance management software like Maxpanda for healthcare facilities to help make life easier for you. It will be able to track the maintenance requirements of all of your equipment so all maintenance is carried out on time, every time.

Hiring The Wrong People

The medical professionals that you hire at your practice will make or break the business. It’s important that you have people with a good amount of experience, otherwise, patients won’t have trust in the practice. If all of your staff are younger medical professionals that only have a few years experience, you won’t have that wealth of knowledge to draw on and that means patient care will suffer. It will cost you more to hire these experienced doctors, but it’s worth the investment if you want the practice to be a success.

Medical practices can be very lucrative businesses, but only if you avoid these basic mistakes when you’re setting them up. 

What is CMMS?

CMMS is software that is used to schedule and record operation and preventive/planned maintenance activities associated with facility equipment.

The CMMS can generate and prioritize work orders and schedules for staff to support “trouble” calls and to perform periodic/planned equipment maintenance. Upon completion of a work order, performance information, such as the date work was performed, supplies/inventory, and man hours expended, typically is loaded into the database for tracking, to support future operations/planning.

Not to confuse CMMS with a Computer-aided Facilities Management (CAFM) system, consider a patient room in a hospital, e.g, ensuring that the Nurse Call System in the room is “properly inspected, maintained, and repaired” is a CMMS activity. “Knowledge” about the medical department staff; specific patient(s) in the room; the room’s contents (phones, TVs, beds–including whether they are moved from room-to-room); and equipment hook-ups (electrical, oxygen, communications, etc.) relate to CAFM activities. CMMS and CAFM systems continue to merge into Integrated Work Order Management Systems (IWOMS).

CMMS are used by facilities maintenance organizations to record, manage, and communicate their day-to-day operations. The system can provide reports used in managing the organization’s resources, preparing facilities key performance indicators (KPIs)/metrics to use in evaluating the effectiveness of the current operations, and for making organizational and personnel decisions. In today’s maintenance world, the CMMS is an essential tool for recording work requirements, tracking the status of the work, and analyzing the recorded data in order to manage the work, produce reports, and help control costs. Facility professionals use tools to manage the planning and day-to-day operations and maintenance activities required for a single facility or a large complex. These tools also provide all of the information required to manage the work, the work force, and the costs necessary to generate management reports and historical data.

DESCRIPTION

The goal of a maintenance manager is to employ a management system that optimizes the use of valuable resources (manpower, equipment, material, and funds) to maintain facilities and equipment. The system should provide for integrated processes, giving the manager control over the maintenance of all facilities and maintainable equipment from acquisition to disposal. The system should:

  • Address all resources involved,
  • Maintain maintenance inventory,
  • Record and maintain work history,
  • Include work tasks and frequencies,
  • Accommodate all methods of work accomplishment,
  • Effectively interface and communicate with related and supporting systems, ranging from work generation through work performance and evaluation,
  • Support each customer’s mission,
  • Ensure communication with each customer,
  • Provide feedback information for analysis, and
  • Reduce costs through effective maintenance planning.

A modern CMMS meets these requirements and assists the facilities maintenance manager with work reception, planning, control, performance, evaluation, and reporting. Such a system will also maintain historical information for management use. The manager should evaluate management data requirements and establish electronic data needs prior to acquiring a new CMMS or additions to/replacement of an existing system. The evaluation should include a return on investment (ROI) analysis before investing in additional or new CMMS capabilities. The manager should only acquire what is necessary to accomplish the maintenance organization’s goals. The following paragraphs include details of capabilities that may be included in a modern CMMS.

A. Operating Locations

The CMMS may include an application that allows an operator to enter and track locations where equipment operates and organize these locations into logical hierarchies or network systems. Work orders can then be written either against the location itself or against the equipment in the operating location. Using operating locations allows for the tracking of the equipment’s lifecycles (history) and provides the capability to track the equipment’s performance at specific sites.

B. Equipment

The CMMS may include a module that allows an operator to keep accurate and detailed records of each piece of equipment. This module would include equipment-related data, such as bill of material, Preventive Maintenance (PM) schedule, service contracts, safety procedures, measurement points, multiple meters, inspection routes, specification data (name plate), equipment downtime, and related documentation. This equipment data is used for managing day-to-day operations and also as historical data that can be used to help make cost-effective “replace or repair” decisions. The data can also be used to develop additional management information, such as building equipment downtime failure code hierarchies for use in maintenance management metrics.

C. Resources

The CMMS may include a separate module to track labor resources. This module typically includes records for all maintenance personnel, including their craft or trade categories, such as mechanic, electrician, or plumber. Additionally, this module may include labor rates in order to capture and track true labor costs against any asset or piece of equipment. Some CMMS will allow maintenance managers to also track skill levels and qualifications for each resource to help in planning and scheduling work. Grouping labor categories into common associations can help a manager assign work to particular shop rather than an individual.

D. Safety Plans

With the emphasis placed on safety throughout Government and industry, a capability for safety plans/planning may be included in a CMMS. The following capabilities should be available:

  • Manual or automatic safety plan numbering.
  • Building safety plans for special work.
  • Tracking hazards for multiple equipment and locations.
  • Associating multiple precautions to a hazard.
  • Tracking hazardous materials for multiple equipment and locations.
  • Ability to reference hazards and precautions once they are entered into the system.
  • Tracking ratings for health, flammability, reactively, contact, and Material Safety Data Sheets for hazardous materials.
  • Defining lock-out/tag-out procedures.
  • Defining tag identifications for specific equipment and locations.
  • Defining safety plans for multiple equipment or locations.
  • Viewing and linking documents.
  • Associating safety plans to job plans, preventative maintenance masters, and work orders.
  • Ability to print safety plans automatically on work orders.
  • Allowing tag-out procedures to be associated to hazards or directly to locations, equipment, and safety plans or work orders.

E. Inventory Control

An inventory control module may be included to allow an operator to track inventory movement, such as items being moved in or out of inventory or from one location to another. Stocked, non-stocked, and special order items could be tracked. The module should also have the capability for tracking item vendors, location of items, item cost information, and the substitute or alternate items that can be used if necessary. Some CMMS recommend and provide the ability to track tools and provide basic tool-room management features as part of the inventory module. This feature allows work planners to see what tools are in stock and assign tools to various work categories to reduce research effort by mechanics and technicians working in the field.

F. Work Request

A work request module should be an integral part of a CMMS. The module can provide the capability for a requestor to input the request, such as a trouble call, or it can be entered by the maintenance organization’s work control. The data entry screen should be designed to need only minimal data entry; a requester should be able to enter minimal data, and work control can enter additional information as required. Data should be entered once, and pop-up tables in the system should eliminate the need to memorize codes. The work order number can be assigned manually or automatically.

G. Work Order Tracking

A CMMS must include work order tracking which is the heart of a work order system. Again, the data should require entry only once, and pop-up tables should eliminate the need to memorize codes. The tracking system should provide instant access to all of the information needed for detailed planning and scheduling, including work plan operations, labor, materials, tools, costs, equipment, blueprints, related documents, and failure analysis. Of course, this is dependent on how many modules are installed and how much information has been entered in the system. The manager must evaluate data requirements and the practicality of adding modules.

H. Work Management

A work management module may be a part of the CMMS. The module could provide the capability that would let a planner specify which labor personnel to apply to specific work orders and when. The module permits planning and dispatching.

  • Planning—In planning, labor assignments would be planned for future shifts. Each person’s calendar availability would be considered when the assignments are made. The assignments would be created sequentially over the shift, filling each person’s daily schedule with priority work for the craft. It could even split larger jobs over multiple shifts automatically.
  • Dispatching—In dispatching, labor assignments would be carried out as soon as possible. This system could begin tracking labor time from the instant the assignment is made. The system operator could interrupt work already in progress to reassign labor resources to more crucial work.

I. Quick Reporting

The CMMS could provide a rapid and easy means for opening, reporting on, and closing work orders, and reporting work on small jobs after-the-fact. Labor, materials, failure codes, completion date, and downtime could all be reported.

J. Preventive Maintenance

The following capabilities may be provided in a CMMS to manage a Preventive Maintenance (PM) program:

  • Supporting multiple criteria for generating PM work orders. If a PM master has both time-based and meter-based frequency information, the program should use whichever becomes due first, and then update the other.
  • Generating time-based PM work orders based upon last generation or last completion date. Next due date and job plans should be displayed.
  • Permitting and tracking PM extensions with adjustments to next due date.
  • Triggering meter-based PM by two separate meters.
  • Printing sequence job plans when wanted.
  • Creating a PM against an item so new parts have PM automatically generated on purchase.
  • Specifying the number of days ahead to generate work orders from PM masters that may not yet have met their frequency criteria.
  • Consolidating weekly, monthly, and quarterly job plans on a single master.
  • Assigning sequence numbers to job plans to tell the system which job plan to use when a PM work order is generated from a PM master.
  • Permitting overriding of frequency criteria in order to generate PM work orders whenever plant conditions require.
  • Routing PM with multiple equipment or locations.
  • Generating work orders in batch or individually for only the equipment specified.
  • Capability to be used with the system scheduler to forecast resources and budgets.

K. Utilities

A utilities module that contains detailed information on utilities consumption, distribution, use, metering, allocation to users, and cost may be included. It could include modeling capability and linkage to utility control systems.

L. Facility/Equipment History

A history module that would contain the maintenance histories of the facilities and equipment may be included. It would contain summaries of PM, repairs, rehabilitation, modifications, additions, construction, and other work affecting the configuration or condition of the items. It would include completed and canceled work orders. The maintenance history records can be used to support proactive maintenance techniques such as root-cause failure analysis and reliability engineering.

M. Purchasing

A mature CMMS may also include a purchasing module to initiate the requisition of material against a work order and track the delivery and cost data of the material when it arrives. This capability will allow the maintenance manager improved visibility of matters that can impact work planning and efficiency. Procuring required material outside the CMMS can often leave information gaps that can inhibit the effectiveness of work execution and result in redundant parts orderings and non-standard procurement practices. The purchasing module may include many functions, such as a vendor master catalog, invoicing, purchase orders, receiving, and even request for quotations.

N. Facilities Maintenance Contracts

A CMMS may contain a contracts module that includes information on maintenance contracts. With other database files, it provides a picture of each contractor’s past performance, current loading, and planned work. It could include information on specifications, Government furnished property, quality assurance, payment processing, delivery orders issued, schedules, and related matters. It could cover both contracts for facilities maintenance and support services.

O. Key Performance Indicators (KPI)/Metrics

The CMMS can be utilized to accumulate the data for KPIs for use in evaluating the organization’s maintenance program. The maintenance management organization must select the metrics to utilize in establishing their goals and in measuring progress in meeting those goals. The importance of Selecting the Right Key Performance Indicators cannot be overstated. The KPIs must be based on data that can be obtained and provide meaningful information that will be utilized in managing the organization.

P. Specialized Capabilities And Features

Some CMMS providers have also developed specialized capabilities and features for particular business sectors, functions, or requirements. Maintenance managers today can use their CMMS to track transportation and fleet inventory, including maintenance history, mileages, lease terms, rates, and accounting data. Other managers are using their CMMS to track deployed assets, such as computers and other IT equipment. Through their CMMS, they track changes, additions, and movement of equipment, including software inventory on computers, tablets, and smart phones. When selecting a CMMS; consider the full scope of asset management options, with a focus on consolidated IT solutions.

APPLICATION

A CMMS can be used to manage simple or complex facilities, from a single building to a complete campus. A CMMS can also be used to manage the maintenance program for a grouping of equipment such as a fleet of vehicles. The systems are very versatile, as most are in modular form for various maintenance functions and can be customized to fit the particular application. Whatever system or set of modules are selected for use, careful consideration needs to be given to functional requirements and a sound deployment plan. The CMMS must meet the needs, constraints, and opportunities of the business and be implemented in a way that users will welcome the technology and have a vision for the benefits it brings. Proper configuration, testing, and training cannot be over emphasized when bringing a new CMMS or upgrading an existing system to an organization.

LESSONS LEARNED

Before procuring and implementing a CMMS, it’s critical to determine how the system is to be an asset and a usable tool in the management of an organization’s day-to-day maintenance and operations.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS (DO’S)

  1. Understand the other systems used by your organization with which the CMMS will have to interface, such as financial and geospatial systems, and ensure that this interface can be easily managed. Users and managers of these systems, including the IT group, should be involved in developing the CMMS.
  2. When considering a new system, make sure that the data from the existing system can be easily and accurately transferred.
  3. Look for full support from the vendor during installation and testing. Ensure that this includes ample training of the organization’s staff in both operating the system and how to maximize the benefit of the information within the system. The vendor should impart a clear understanding of what the system can and cannot do, as well as annual maintenance and upgrade costs.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS (DON’TS)

  1. Do not go into the selection of a system without a clear definition of requirements: What you expect it to do and how it is to meet your specialized needs. Also, have a clear understanding of what metrics you want your CMMS to produce and what the work process is for your organization. You may want to bring in outside professional guidance experienced in CMMS but not associated with any particular vendor or system.
  2. Do not try to develop a CMMS in-house. You will spend an inordinate amount of time and money designing a system that is likely already available on the market. There are many vendors of good off-the-shelf systems that have the advantage of years in developing and improving systems for other similar clients.
  3. Do not make your CMMS your primary payroll and accounting system. Remember that it is a work management system that requires data relating to time and costs (thus interfacing with your financial systems) but it should not be the system that employees rely on to get paid, otherwise it will get tied up every two weeks with payroll time entry.
  4. Do not get locked into a structure for which it is difficult to enter data or that lacks the necessary flexibility to be upgraded or modified. Consider who will be entering the data and their computer skills. The CMMS should have the flexibility to accept data from multiple sources and media, and ease of data entry will improve its accuracy and the resulting output. Also, the system should be flexible enough to allow the transfer of data during the design and construction phases of a project, e.g. Construction Operations Building information exchange (COBie).
  5. If you are considering replacing your existing system, do not get locked to “lost costs.” Don’t fall for the logic that what you have now is not doing the job but you have too much time and money invested in it to change. Consider only the time and cost to correct your existing system to meet your needs versus what a new system would cost.
  6. Do not limit yourself to looking at only one system early in the selection process. Develop a short list and “road test” each product. Establish rating criteria and score the actual performance of each candidate.
  7. Do not be the Beta test. Look for systems that have a proven track record with agencies similar to yours. Avoid unneeded complexity.

Failure of CMMS implementations is a continuing problem voiced by industry experts, and avoiding the pitfalls in decision-making about implementing or modifying CMMS in a maintenance organization means research must be a high priority. Conduct a thorough management study of the system to evaluate how it would be used in your organization and to determine the costs/benefits. Not all maintenance organizations require the use of a complete set of CMMS modules. Those that have implemented CMMS programs without adequate study typically fail to use the capabilities incorporated in the software and may eventually view the program as a failure.

CMMS would benefit significantly from a standardized asset identification system, in which each piece of equipment or building component is given an identification number common to all facilities throughout an organization. The General Services Administration (GSA) has such a system called the Government Asset Identification System. It uses National CAD Standards acronyms to identify assets and cross references CAD acronyms with Omniclass. If Government agencies adopt National CAD and Omniclass standards to identify their assets, they will expect to reduce costs, improve information for executive decisions, increase operational efficiency, and integrate facility management with new and existing technologies.

EMERGING ISSUES

The most notable emerging issue is the implementation of Building Information Modeling (BIM). BIM is an enabler that vastly improves the quality of information available to all facility tools. Information collected during design and construction can and should be used to commission facilities and validate performance. That model information can then be used to ensure the facility continues to perform as intended. A BIM can support all the applications identified earlier in this article. The National BIM Standard-United States™ provides the open formats which allow information to be captured and used by most CMMS tools. In fact, seeking out products that do support these open standards can minimize data lock with any specific vendor.